The present invention relates to a process for the production of reduction sauces.
Reduction sauces are those sauces which have all or some of their ingredients reduced by evaporation. Typically in the kitchen, a chef produces a sauce in a saucepan or shallow pan by boiling vigorously some or part of the ingredients of a recipe. Liquid ingredients such as stock, wine, alcohol or vinegar will be concentrated as the liquid phase is evaporated. The pan or saucepan is normally heated over a high flame or high temperature heat source, usually causing a degree of caramelisation and the development of the definite and typical flavour of that reduced recipe.
Reduction sauces are at present manufactured batchwise by boiling in an open steam jacketed pan and this has been up to now the only satisfactory method for producing their characteristic flavour. However, since the evaporation rate is only about 3 liters/min, this method is time consuming as well as operator dependent. Attempts have been made to accelerate the removal of the ingredients which are normally reduced by evaporation by methods other than boiling at atmospheric pressure. Such methods have included boiling under vacuum and removal of the water phase from the recipe formulation, but although these methods increase the speed at which the concentrate can be manufactured, they do not produce a product with the characteristic flavour of a reduction sauce.